


Ongaeshi

by chacusha



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Dramatic Irony, F/M, Missing Scene, Shippy undertones, Some violence / injury, but a little sad in light of the game's ending, mostly fluffy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-15
Updated: 2019-10-15
Packaged: 2020-11-22 04:14:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20868026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chacusha/pseuds/chacusha
Summary: After Auron takes a hit for Rikku, she takes the opportunity to treat his injury and urge him to take better care of his body.





	Ongaeshi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Meilan_Firaga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meilan_Firaga/gifts).

The Macalania Woods were a beautiful sight, the crystalline forest floor and trees sparkling in the filtered sunlight. But like everywhere in Spira, fiends roamed the woods, and they were brutal. Rikku was just recovering from the pain of removing a wasp sting and treating the poison in the wound when another fiend came crashing out of the trees from behind her. Before she could fully turn around, something sharp punched into her back, causing her to let out a gasp. The thing ripped free of her skin again and Rikku stumbled to her knees.

"Rikku!" It was Lulu's voice, and it was followed shortly thereafter with a powerful fire spell that set the creature shrieking. It was a xiphos, Rikku saw, a nasty piece of work with blades for appendages. The flame spell hadn't succeeded in finishing it off, and now it fixed beady eyes on Rikku and leapt high in the air to finish _her_ off.

"Eep!" Rikku cried, hiding her head under her arms and tensing up. She braced herself for the slash, but it never came. When she opened her eyes, Auron was standing above her, left arm raised, and his right arm lifting the katana off his back and swinging it down heavily straight into the xiphos's shoulder. It crumpled to the ground in a heap.

He had taken the creature's attack directly on his arm, Rikku realized. Allowing the sharp edge to embed itself in his bracer had immobilized the xiphos long enough for him to deal a lethal counterattack.

"You all right, Rikku?" Auron asked gruffly from where he stood above her.

"Y... yeah, I'm fine." Relatively speaking, that was. She was bleeding from a wound in her abdomen, but at least she wasn't, you know, dead.

"Then we move on."

"But -- but ---" If she wasn't so exhausted and if everything didn't hurt, Rikku would have thrown a temper tantrum right there and then. Instead, she looked up and noticed Auron's own injury. "Hey, your arm --"

Auron's bracer had taken the brunt of the impact, but the attack had nevertheless pierced skin: blood was flowing down his arm and some amount had dripped onto the ground. Auron examined the injury with a detached look in his eye. "It will heal."

"Aw, come on Auron, I think we're all a bit tired?" Tidus interjected, indicating the other members of their party: Rikku slumped on the ground clutching her mid-section, Yuna with sweat on her forehead from the amount of spell-casting she had done in the past few hours, Kimahri licking a deep gash on his upper arm. Only Lulu and Wakka seemed in decent fighting shape still.

Auron surveyed his companions with a critical eye before saying, "Fine."

They found a relatively secluded grove where the crystalline trees were packed in close. Tidus, Wakka, and Lulu kept a lookout for fiends, while the rest of them dug out potions and ethers and tried to figure out what they could spare and what they should save. They gave an ether to Yuna so that she would have enough magical reserves for healing in a pinch, and Kimahri and Rikku took a couple of potions each. Declining the need for a potion, Auron sat with his back against a tree and rested for a moment.

Rubbing the skin near her healing wound gingerly, Rikku walked over to Auron and crouched down by his left side. "Let me see your arm," she said.

"Don't waste a potion on me," Auron said, but he held out his injured arm for Rikku to examine. She unbuckled the fastenings on the bracer and peeled the metal and leather away from his skin.

"For us Al Bhed," Rikku said in a quiet voice so that Wakka did not hear, "if an injury is due to our carelessness, we have to be the one to treat it."

Auron raised one skeptical eyebrow. "I've never heard that," he said.

He fixed his gaze on her over his sunglasses. Rikku often wondered if the legendary guardian was aware of how piercing that gaze was, how it seemed to see right through her. She looked down at her busy hands to avoid his eyes, heartbeat thumping in her ears. "Okay, fine, I made that up. But we really do dislike owing people anything." She finished carefully wrapping a bandage around his arm and tied the end in a small bow.

"As guardians we defend each other and our summoner and move forward. It's not about owing," Auron said simply.

"You say that but I almost died back there, you know! Don't you think that's something that people should feel grateful for?" She finished re-fastening the armguard. "How does that feel?"

Auron held his arm out in front of him, turned it this way and that. "Fine. Better," he said, tucking it back into his haori.

"You... don't really take care of your body well, do you?" Rikku asked him.

"Hm. Is that what you think?"

The older guardian hadn't really answered her question, and Rikku didn't answer his either, instead remarking, "Spira is... filled with people who die young."

"Yes," Auron replied. "That has been my experience." There was a hint of dry amusement in his voice, which puzzled Rikku, but he didn't seem to be mocking her.

She inched closer to him so that she could say in a lower voice, so that Tidus, the closest of the sentries, would not hear: "I mean, between the Crusaders and the pilgrimages, it's like the young adults of every village and city keep on getting cut down, like they're being reaped." Rikku struggled to keep the emotion out of her voice. "From the outside, it looks like... it's almost like..." Rikku wasn't sure if she was brave enough to say the thought out loud.

Auron pinned her with that piercing stare again. "Say it."

Rikku looked down at her hands again. "...a death cult." Looking up quickly, she added, "Don't get me wrong, I'm serious about being a guardian. As long as Yunie is serious about being a summoner."

"So you told me. But what point are you trying to make?"

"Oh, right! In a society like that, that's always cutting down its young, the elderly become precious, you know? Treasured."

The muscles in Auron's face twitched up in what Rikku guessed was a smile, hidden behind his high collar. "Are you calling me old?"

Rikku pretended to ponder the question. "Hm... yeah!" _And a treasure,_ she thought, but some things were best not said out loud.

"Don't worry. I don't plan on dying anytime soon."

"Good." That was what she wanted to hear.

Nearby, Yuna had risen to her feet. "I... I think I'm ready to continue," she said.

"Kimahri too."

"And Rikku!" Rikku said, jumping to her feet.

And then the seven of them were off again, picking the rest of their way through the woods.

**Author's Note:**

> I basically go *heart eyes* for all those knight-type characters who have the ability to defend other characters, which is what inspired this fic.


End file.
